Noir

Neo noir requires a number of things, a prose voice that snaps, crackles and pops and sex, drugs and violence. It simply doesn't work without sex, drugs and violence. Try to write noir without those elements and very quickly you find yourself in Bugsy Malone territory, which is real kiddie porn without the sex: it shows prepubescent kids behaving like adults, dressed like adults, and with adult motivations. When they get splattered with cream, you go, "oh, yeah, I know what THAT means..." So I had to just make my characters high school seniors. It helped to watch Twilight the other night. The girls joking about the size of their boyfriends' bananas set my heart at rest. Now I need a freaking ending. My highschool gumshoe Rick Swick has a wooden tanto, and I think he's going to go all buffy on Edward's ass. But there needs to be a couple of reversals before that happens. I hate plotting... Character development and rising action are fun and games. Endings are hard work.

Neo Noir Noodlings

My noggin is noodling for some neonoir nonsense. Reading James Ellroy's Crime Wave currently and hepcats, it is da bomb! Never have I experienced such piercing yet purple prose. It rocks, it rolls, it smokes, it cornholes, it's fabulous to the maxi, and it speaks to me fortissimo! Ooooh daddy-O, give it to me like fizz in the joint, like a flaccid acid skid, a methy-dexy knock out punch, and I do mean TKO, sweets.

I have in mind a high school neo noir, a melange of messy matriculators, devilish delinquents trying to score to the core. The maguffin: Mr. Frink's stolen test questions, and set in the scintillating seventies, so I can dispense with all that turgid technology like personal computers and cell phones. Kids have to hoof it in their platform shoes and bell bottoms if they don't have sweet rides provided by their permissive parents.

Reactions

I'm so confused. My mind is spinning. I'm reading James Ellroy's Crime Wave right now. Crime Wave is a collection of shorter pieces, including the piece he wrote for GQ magazine which he later expanded into his memoir. It has my undivided focus and attention, like a laser beaming into my brain. This fluffy bullshit chick-lit style writing that includes every nuance of character reaction makes me want to puke (much the same reaction Rick Santorum has to JFK). Ellroy's is the kind of writing I want to emulate: powerful, muscular, spare--like a marathon runner, not like a big fat bacchus. Maybe that just means I have to write shorter pieces. Apparently novels these days require polixity.

GMC

No, not the car company. Instead something about writing.

An editor from Virginia called me last week and raked me over the proverbial coals for having a narrative voice too distant from my character's point of view. This is a common theme that I hear in criticism of my work. It implies that the reader has difficulty relating to the character, and that I should provide more sensory detail, more physical and mental reactions to the events that transpire in the story.

I well know that this is a big flaw in my writing. The Seattle agent that represents Dan Savage told me that my main character in "After the Fire" just didn't make her care enough about him. And that is after I've been working on fixing this problem for years. So obviously this kind of writing is not something that comes naturally to me. I see fiction like I see movies or video games; visually, with the camera over the shoulder. However, that's just not today's mode. The current mode is very close third-person point of view, the eyes of the character are the camera. It's a type of third person point of view that's almost, but not quite, as close as first person point of view.

One of the things the Virginia editor mentioned was something called "GMC" which she told me stood for "goals, motivation, crisis." So, I did a little research, and discovered a book called "Goals, Motivation and Conflict" by Debra Dixon. This seems to be exactly what the Virginia editor was talking about. I ordered the book. On Amazon, it's exorbitantly expensive for some reason, so order directly from the publisher.

I will post more after I receive it and digest its contents.

Rejections

Two rejections in the past few days. One was "can't use it." The other was "can't use it. Best of luck placing it elsewhere." Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I get the impression that the first response was really saying, "It's not at all right for our publication." And the second response was saying, "this shows promise, it's not right for us, but keep trying." One has to parse these or one goes mad.

After the Fire

After the Fire is my Hollywood novel-in-progress; written between 2004 and 2006, and tinkered with ever since. I cut 13,000 words this weekend. It's down to a very trim 90,700 words now. There's only one scene that was really hard to give up; but there was just no place for it, and it's already been published as an excerpt so, "Adios for the nonce!"

It's interesting how when you cut explicit words, the imagination provides them anyway. Readers get the idea without seeing the close-up of the naughty bits. I suppose I had to originally write it to see how the characters behaved, but I found that cutting "insert tab A into slot B" the prose got stronger by pointing to those events so the reader can imagine them in the white space.

I want the 90K word count because it feels right: balanced, manageable, and accessible-not because of publishing constraints. I decided to cut one scene because, although it shows my hero slipping deeper into mental illness, the other subject-matter seemed too extreme for the mainstream (he winds up in a bathhouse). I'm finally thinking about my audience. I want to hint at the nitty-gritty, not rub their noses in it. So I'm showing compassion for my readers, lol. I want to attract as wide an audience as I can.

I wrote out of order and without a clear idea of where the story was going, so I wrote about 75 scenes for After the Fire (some MUCH better than others, lol...) but when I pieced the novel together like a puzzle, 25 of those just naturally fell by the wayside. For example, there's a three chapter series concerning the villain's background that never made the cut. So much of what would otherwise have been cutting a manuscript of 150K words (if I'd tried to keep every scene) didn't have to be done because those scenes were never part of the mix. There's still plenty to cut. Smoothing and mixing transitions is definitely the project I face now. Writing scenes out of order and with no narration is a great way to start a novel; however, it just takes so long to finish! Writing scenes out of order and with no narration pretty much guarantees that your scenes will have some kind of purpose underlying them but fitting them together into a coherent narrative is a big effort.

Ultimate Compassion

Philip Glass set this passage to music in his 5th Symphony. It is one of the most beautiful non-scriptural passages I have ever read, and I want to put it to memory. Reminds me a little of the prayer of St. Francis.

Gladly do I rejoice
In the virtue that relieves the misery
Of all those who suffer
And place them in happiness.

Thus by the virtue collected
Through all that I have done,
May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away.

May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Til everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger
And during the aeons of famine
May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all the things they could need
And may these be placed close beside them.

May I be protector for those without one,
A guide for all travelers on the way;
[May I be] a bridge, a boat and a ship
For all who wish to cross the water.

May I be an island for those who seek one
And a lamp for those wishing light,
[May I be] a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,
Powerful mantras and great medicine,
[May I become] a wish-fulfilling tree
And a cow of plenty for the world.

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the ends of space.

Sãntideva: Bodhicaryãvatãra 3:1, 6-925; 3:17-21
(Sanskrit, translated from the Tibetan commentary by Thog-me
Zang-po)